


Side by side with you (and yet I feel so cold)

by Tomicaleto



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Luke comes back from the dead, M/M, Pre-Redemption, Pre-Relationship, Unresolved Feelings, and there was only one bed, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25587031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tomicaleto/pseuds/Tomicaleto
Summary: Percy was only looking forward to spending his night on a comfortable bed. He did not expect this.
Relationships: Luke Castellan/Percy Jackson
Comments: 26
Kudos: 124





	Side by side with you (and yet I feel so cold)

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of Sloaners Summerfest Bingo Event!  
> Since it's winter in Argentina, I'm adapting my prompts to winter situations (I'll put which ones I used at the end notes)
> 
> Heads-up: I haven't read HoO and I probably won't either, thus the canon divergence tag

When Percy had been given the order to go and pick up a new half-blood, he had expected to have a team with him to begin with. He had also expected having to camp out in the woods and the generally unpleasant experiences of being out of the camp: cold weather, monsters chasing after him and not being able to take a bath for long periods of time. 

But while he still had had to endure the winter chills on his trip, the rest of the quest had been mostly calm. Chiron had even spoken with him at some point to tell him Mr D. had booked him a room in a fairly nice hotel. 

The place was indeed quite nice and, most importantly, dry and warm. A burning fireplace in the back of the hall glowed with a crackling fire, making his shoulders relax. He watched it for a minute or two, before walking towards the receptionist desk.

“Good afternoon.” He said, feeling awkward. None of the half-blood campers were used to these accommodations during missions and social interactions were, for some, worse than battle training. “I’m here for the room booked under Jackson. I’ve been told it’s all already paid for.” 

The woman behind the desk smiled politely at him. “Of course, please wait a minute while I check everything is in order.” 

Percy nodded, looking around the hall. his fingers tapping on the desk. There was a couple of art pieces on one of the walls, depicting calm beaches and pine woods. He guessed they were probably landscapes from around the place. He wondered if the half-blood he needed to find had grown playing around those places. 

“Could you give me some kind of ID, sir?” He turned back to the woman and he quickly checked his pockets. While taking out his wallet, his hand grazed Riptide and he felt his whole body relax a little. “Thank you. This won’t take long.” 

The sound of the keyboard being used was loud in his ears and when it suddenly stopped it felt jarring. 

“Oh my.” Were the uttered words. He was instantly alert. 

“Is something the matter?” He asked. 

The receptionist smiled nervously. “It seems we have made a mistake.” She explained. “Was your reservation made via phone call? It appears we have another person booked under the same room. Looks like it is double booked.” 

“I’m sorry? What do you mean the room is double booked.” He deadpanned.   
“It rarely happens, only when someone makes the reservation via email and the other via phone call.” She continued, not looking up from the computer. “We can fix it once the other person shows up. Would you like to go to your room for now? I can continue with your check in and it’ll be more comfortable for you to wait there.” 

He accepted, but his senses hadn’t calmed down at all. 

\---

Once in his room, he checked for traps and monsters, the hiccup with the room reservation putting him on edge. He had the feeling that something he would not enjoy would happen. 

And he had been looking forward to sleeping in a bed during this mission. So sad. 

The place was clean and he allowed himself a little relieved sigh. 

“Now, this is awkward.” Said a familiar voice behind him. 

Turning quick as lightning, he took Riptide out, the pen turning into his sword nice and easy. Standing in front of him was Luke Castellan. He frowned. Luke had been dead for four years now. This couldn’t be possible. 

“It’s nice to see you too, Percy, but I must admit I’m at a disadvantage here. I have no weapon.” 

“How are you alive?” He looked good, sporting a tan, his hair short in a trendy haircut. His scar looked as ugly as ever on his handsome face. 

Luke shrugged and walked around the sword pointed at him. Percy kept it high in front of him, while the older demigod opened a small fridge and took out a bottle of soda. The liquid inside was blue. 

“I’m not quite sure myself, if I’m being honest.” He took a long sip from his drink. Percy followed the movement of his throat when he swallowed. “But I can’t complain… much.” 

“Did you know I was going to be here? What are you planning?” 

At that, Luke let out a laugh. “I had no idea this was going to happen, Percy. I swear!” He exclaimed when Percy gave a step forward, Riptide still ready to be used. “I’ve been moving around, doing little jobs here and there, trying to get used to being alive once again. It’s weird, I’ve lost four years and my body somehow knows that.” He sat down on a couch near the bathroom door. “I have been offered a small part-time job in this town and needed a place to stay. The double-booking was a honest mistake from the hotel.”

That made Percy stop. Slowly, he lowered Riptide and capped it, the sword once again a pen. 

“Speaking of,” began Luke, “they offered to give one of us a refund, but they seem to have run out of rooms. Busy season, apparently people love the woods during winter.” 

“Good luck finding a new place to spend the night, then.” He immediately answered. 

“Hey, now!” 

“Well, what do you want me to do?” He was not spending the night next to a self-made bonfire. Luke seemed to think for a couple of seconds, his face serious. ‘Finally’, thought Percy, ‘he’s been acting like he hasn’t tried to destroy everything when he was alive. Sacrifice at the end or not.’ 

“Perhaps we could share?”

“No.”

“Oh, c’mon, I’m sure the establishment won’t mind, we’ll tell them we’re friends and that this was a happy coincidence.”

Percy frowned. “This is not a happy coincidence.”

Luke put a hand on his chest, feigning being hurt. “So mean.” Then he turned serious again. “I’m not leaving this room, Percy. And, let’s be real, it’s not like we haven’t shared a cabin once or twice. Do it for the memories, yeah?” 

“No.”

\---

“I hate you.” He said, laying on his side of the bed. Behind him, he heard Luke’s low chuckles. 

“Yes, of course, because being forced to share a bed with me is worse than me betraying the camp and going to war with the gods.”

“I hated you for that already, this is only adding to it.” The room was dark and, even though he knew Luke was unarmed, he still was holding Riptide tight in his hand. 

Silence met him. It couldn’t be that Luke had already fallen asleep, he could feel him trying to get more comfortable on his side of the bed. When Luke had died, it had been easy to move on with his life. Annabeth had gone to Olympus to help there and he had grown into his new role as a mentor of the new campers. 

Thinking about Luke and his numerous crimes had fallen low on his list of priorities, but seeing the man in front of him again brought up a lot of feelings and questions he didn’t even want to consider. 

“I can hear you thinking loudly over there. C’mon, ask away.” 

He scoffed. “Don’t think yourself so important.”

“You’re so funny, Percy.” 

“Shut up”

They fell silent once again. 

“What’s it like, being dead?” He asked, kicking himself mentally for doing so.

Luke didn’t answer, probably contemplating what to say. 

“Lonely, a lot of campers that died in Kronos’s war were there. It was not nice.” He said, quietly. 

“You know you deserved it, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

Percy felt Luke turning once again, but the blond didn’t say anything more and the atmosphere was too tense for Percy to begin talking again. He stayed quiet, listening to Luke’s breathing until it went soft, having finally fallen asleep. Lulled by those sounds, his eyelids grew heavy and his last thought was that, if he didn’t know better, it was nice, having Luke next to him once again. 

\--- 

He woke up the next morning to an empty bed. There were no signs of Luke except the unmade side of the bed. 

Still groggy with sleep, he sat down. There was a ripped piece of paper on the table next to the bed. It had a message messily scrawled on it. He read it once, twice and then snorted, shaking his head and putting it inside his wallet, next to the picture of his mom and a selfie with Annabeth. 

He took a shower, the hot water making him sigh and got ready to continue his quest. 

Once outside the hotel, the cellphone he had been given at the beginning of his journey rang. 

“Hey, Chiron, thanks again for the hotel room.” 

“That’s why I was calling you, we heard there had been trouble with the reservation.”

“Yeah, they had accidentally double-booked it, but it was solved without much fuss.” 

“Oh, that’s good to hear. Did you meet someone interesting?” 

He thought back to Luke’s voice when he said the word ‘lonely’. And the empty bed in the morning and the note in his pocket. 

“Not really, just a guy who had a job offer to get to.”

**Author's Note:**

> This could easily be the beginning of a long enemies to lovers fic where Luke works to redeem himself and then starts dating Percy. With plenty of silly shenanigans and maybe some angst and hurt/comfort with a happy ending in the end. 
> 
> The prompt was: What do you mean the room is double booked
> 
> The last time I wrote PJO fics was 2013 and in Spanish, woopsies


End file.
